The last time Jim Louvau saw Chester Bennington, the two old friends were driving up and down the California coast sharing their latest recordings with each other.

It was late 2016 and Louvau had just finished an EP while Bennington had recently recorded "One More Light" with Linkin Park, the biggest-selling rock act of their generation.

After hearing how heavy Louvau's latest music was, Bennington said, "Well, we just made a pop record."

Louvau, a photographer who often shoots for azcentral, wasn't buying it.

"I'm thinking ‘There’s no way,'" he says. "When you're in a band and you're so close to your material, what you think things sound like is usually different than what an outsider will think. So in my head, I’m thinking, 'This is gonna sound like Linkin Park.' Then he played it and it was a pop record."

Beneath that poppy finish, though, he found some of the darkest material he'd ever heard from Bennington. And given the conversation they'd just had, that darkness felt especially unsettling.

"His stepdad had just passed away from cancer," Louvau says. "And my mother had just passed away from brain cancer. He was a complete open book that day and I definitely saw a side of him that made me uncomfortable. I knew that things weren't great and that things were not going in a good direction for him. I was actually so taken aback by things that he was telling me that I had to step away and call my wife. It was intense stuff. Lots of depression. And as we listened to this stuff, after some of the things that he had told me about where he was mentally, the songs were hard for me to listen to. I looked at him after a while and I was like, 'How are you going to explain this to people? Like, when you do press?' He was just in such a bad place."

Chester Bennington and Jim Louvau(Photo: Courtesy of Jim Louvau)

Losing Chester Bennington

"One More Light" was released in May, 2017, and soon became the California rockers' fifth release to top the Billboard album chart.

On July 20, Bennington's body was discovered by his housekeeper. The death was ruled a suicide.

He was 41.

Louvau woke that morning to 10 or 15 texts from friends.

"I was lying in bed with my wife," he recalls. "I tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'Chester's dead.' After that day in 2016 and all the things that he disclosed to me, it was much less of a shock to me than it was to people that didn’t know him. I knew things weren't right."

That was one of the worst days of his life, Louvau says.

"It's just one of those things where most people know this person as a musician in this band," he says. "But that was, like, the last thing I thought of when I thought of him. We had a lot of interests outside of music, like sports. We used to play basketball together at LA Fitness in Gilbert."

Chester Bennington: A life in photos

They also took a lot of photos — somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 is Louvau's best guess.

On Friday, June 21, Louvau will host an opening reception for an exhibition of those photos, "Celebrating the Life of Chester Bennington," at monOrchid in Phoenix.

Chester Bennington(Photo: Courtesy of Jim Louvau)

When Louvau's exhibit opened at an L.A. gallery in March on what would have been Bennington's 43rd birthday, Talinda Bennington, the singer's widow, tweeted, "This will be a beautiful and emotional display of Chester. @jimlouvau was a longtime friend and photographer of Chester and had shot some of the best photos of him to date."

Now for the first time, fans can see these images in Bennington's hometown.

Taura-Vivian Holland, the gallery curator for True North Studio, which owns the Phoenix gallery, says, "monOrchid is very excited to exhibit photographs by Jim Louvau of local music legend Chester Bennington. A true hometown hero, Bennington cared about Phoenix, and monOrchid gallery is proud to be working with 320 Change Direction, founded by Bennington’s family to make talking about mental health issues a little easier. MonOrchid has always strived to be a third space, a home for everyone, and we hope by hosting this exhibition we are empowering people to have open and honest conversations about mental and emotional health.”

A portion of the proceeds will benefit 320 Change Direction.

"I was so thankful for our friendship and him being so great to me that my way of honoring him and thanking him was to put these exhibits together," Louvau says. "I'm taking a horrible situation and trying to do something special as a tribute and to honor someone that not only was a really good friend of mine but someone that helped me in my career as a photographer."

When Linkin Park played the Mason Jar

He hadn't quite launched that career when the seeds of their friendship were planted at the Mason Jar on Aug. 15, 2000.

"My band, Victims in Ecstasy, was playing a show with an unknown band called Linkin Park," Louvau recalls. "That was about three months before 'Hybrid Theory' came out and sold 13 million records. They were actually supposed to open for us and I got a phone call a few days before. The booking agent said there was a guy from Phoenix in the band and his family couldn't get out to see them early. Would we mind switching spots?"

They were totally cool with that, he says.

"It was during the week, so I figured I could get home earlier."

During Victims in Ecstasy's set, their drummer broke a snare drum, and Bennington came to the rescue, offering his drummer's snare.

Two months later, "Hybrid Theory" hit the streets. And as the record started blowing up, Linkin Park was playing Phoenix regularly.

As Louvau recalls "I remember after we played the Mason Jar together, I was standing backstage at a festival called That Damn Show at Peoria Sports Complex. It was an Edge concert. Someone taps me on the shoulder and I turn around and it's Chester. He said, 'Dude, you're awesome. What you're doing, your band is great.' So over the course of time, we kept in touch. I would see him in passing at these shows. And at That Damn Show, I went back to the hotel and we partied and had a good time."

It wasn't until 2008 that Louvau took the first of those 10,000 photos of Bennington backstage at the Marquee Theatre.

"It was a Club Tattoo anniversary party," Louvau says. "I think I did a slide show for the Republic and a quick little interview backstage. That was the first time I was like, 'Hey do you mind if I take a few photos of you?' And he said, 'Of course.' So I took some portraits of him real quick. I didn't realize the portraits I took of him that day were going to continue to live forever. But over the course of nine years, anytime Chester was doing a charity benefit, anytime Chester was playing with Linkin Park or Stone Temple Pilots, whatever he was doing, I was always someone that he would give all the access to that I ever wanted."

'He trusted me'

That first shot from the Marquee is one of the 25 photos on the display in the photo exhibit.

"Since I had so many, it got to the point where I just had to look at something and go 'This one,'" he says of the selection process. "If it grabbed me right away, I knew that it belonged in the exhibit. I have enough photos to do these exhibits over and over again with completely different shots."

He decided on 25 as the limit, he says, because "it gave me enough wiggle room to show a little bit of each aspect or how I saw Chester visually in different environments in different years, different vibes, different moods."

At the time of those earliest photo shoots, Louvau says, "I was pretty small potatoes as a photographer. I had been shooting concerts but the stuff I was really super excited about was working with artists one-one and portrait stuff. So anytime I ever asked to do anything with him, he would always want to do it because we were friends and, you know, he trusted me. And when I started doing that stuff, it really took my photography to a place it wasn't before. People saw that I was working with an artist that was huge, was on top of the rock and roll world. Since we met when we were peers, before the band was big or anything, I was never intimidated or weirded out but I was also very respectful of our friendship."

Chester Bennington and Jim Louvau(Photo: Courtesy of Jim Louvau)

That friendship and respect allowed Louvau to work with Bennington until they got the shots they wanted.

"The funny thing with Chester was that a lot of the subjects that I have worked with are real character-type people," Louvau says. "It might be an artist that wears a lot of makeup or is really over-animated. Chester was not really that guy. He would laugh and be so humorous most of the time that we were doing portraits and photo shoot stuff that I had to really get him serious or I was going to be looking at smiles over and over again. He used to always joke, 'I don't know why you like taking photos of me. I only have two looks.' And he was right. It was different when he was playing shows because the fierce yet emotional beast mode that was him as a performer was always on display. He was really easy to shoot live."

He was also a great guy to have as a friend.

"One of the cooler things that happened that last day I got to hang with him in California is I told him that my wife was pregnant," Louvau recalls. "And he said, 'Dude, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go up to my cabin in Sedona, spend a few days and go on a Babymoon. Unplug your devices, enjoy each other's company and go out and just enjoy some time together before this baby comes.' That's how Chester was — very giving to people, especially friends and people he knew for a long time and trusted. I thought that was such a cool thing for him to do. But he was really good at helping other people."

Claim to fame: Singer | How do you know him? He is known as the lead vocalist for Linkin Park and fulfilled his dream of being lead vocalist for Stone Temple Pilots from 2013-2015. | School: Centennial High School and Greenway High School Pat Shannahan/The Republic

Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin Park, and his Boston Terrier, "Bruiser" meet with Noah Grant, 11, of Mesa, an occupational therapy patient at Cardon Children's Medical Center in Mesa on Wednesday, November 2, 2011. David Wallace/The Republic

Chester Bennington of Linkin Park performs on stage at the iHeartRadio Album Release Party presented by State Farm at the iHeartRadio Theater Los Angeles on May 22, 2017 in Burbank, California. Rich Fury, Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Lead singer Chester Bennington sings to fans during the Carnivores Tour Wednesday September 10, 2014 at U.S. Airways Center in Phoenix. 30 Seconds to Mars opened along with AFI for headliner Linkin Park. Dominic Valente/The Republic, Dominic Valente/The Republic

Chester Bennington of Linkin Park performs on stage at the iHeartRadio Album Release Party presented by State Farm at the iHeartRadio Theater Los Angeles on May 22, 2017 in Burbank, California. Rich Fury, Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin Park, and his Boston Terrier, "Bruiser" meets with Langley Danielson, 4, of Gilbert, an occupational therapy patient as Langley's mother, Jessica Danielson of Gilbert and brother, Sawyer Danielson, 2, look on at Cardon Children's Medical Center in Mesa on Wednesday, November 2, 2011. David Wallace/The Republic

Chester Bennington, Rob Bourdon and Dave Farrell of Linkin Park perform on stage at the iHeartRadio Album Release Party presented by State Farm at the iHeartRadio Theater Los Angeles on May 22, 2017 in Burbank, California. Rich Fury, Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Chester Bennington, of the band Linkin Park, talks to a table full of young patients including Danny Arismendez, middle, and Angelique Villegas, right, while visiting Cardon Children's Medical Center, October 26, 2012. Pat Shannahan/The Republic